“To Alcohol! The cause of and the solution to Life’s all problems” – Homer J Simpson (Nuclear plant worker, father of three and an alcoholic by choice)

Students! Today we will study about alcohol said the lecturer and all the guys were rapt with attention. The word alcohol was like the elixir of life in that boring class, which had almost killed all the students. All daydreamers had started having  visions of themselves holding a glass of amber liquid and three or four hot chicks surrounding them sitting on the armrests of the leather throne they sat on, just like in the movies… then the lecturer said, “an alcohol is any organic compound in which a Hydroxyl group is bound to a carbon atom of an alkyl or substituted alkyl group. The general formula for a simple acyclic alcohol is C_nH_2n+1OH”. And their dreams were shattered with  those alien words. What the hell was all this? May be we need some real education not this textbook crap to get ahead in life. When will we learn the truth about alcohol and all related activities? They were dejected with defeat written large over their face expressing their inability to understand this social custom yet knowing that someday they will have to face it. This would be the case with many when they study chemistry in intermediate. So, to learn more on how we engineers manage to create great technical innovations while being totally punch drunk! Read on.

A normal day at any Institute of technical knowledge comprises of some students going to class, some bunking class, some playing some sport, some group of girls sitting under the trees in the grounds chatting away to glory and then there is this group, who are found to be perennially drunk. No day in college is complete without some guy being drunk. This is something one gets to know right in the first year, when some seniors rag the juniors and ask them to pay for their beer and it is often heard that somebody or the other got creamed almost daily. That implies that there are many happily drunk seniors. Most of the students, who enter into Engineering, enter with the thought ‘Drinking is prevalent in the college but I wont get drunk, I wont touch that vile filthy fluid at all in my life and will remain a sanctimonious preacher of probation’. Yet, most of them before they are done with their education have ‘tried it’ or ‘tasted it’ as it is called and some of the staunchest supporters of the anti youth alcohol lobby have been found to be the most drunk people ever to roam the campus.

The result of "The drinking and driving experiment" Credit: Major Payne

Why? Why do youngsters take up drinking or are attracted to it . This is an age old question, which has many different answers just like the answers we engineers write for the questions in the examination. “Drinking is a way of life. Since times immemorial we have heard of drunk people. My ancestors invented alcohol so, why cant i drink it ? Why am I supposed to have a drink and feel bad about it?”, questions Kedar, a 4th year student in an engineering college. He is essentially right that drinking is an ancient activity and beer mugs have been found in archaeological excavations dating back to 10000 BC. Truly alcohol has been around for a very long time. Some students feel that drinking is cool and its the hip thing to do. “If you ask me people, who drink to be cool are a sad lot”, says Vipin a 3rd yearite.

Drinking isn’t cool or  is it? This will remain a mystery and opinions vary from person to person. There are a whole lot of reasons as to why do youngsters take up drinking. Some do under peer pressure, some always knew that they would be drunks. Some have no idea why they attack the bubbly with gusto when they see it and some just drink it to have a great time. “I am 20 years old. I have a girlfriend, who is a big pain in the butt, my parents breathe down my neck all the time for my results and my bike doesn’t give me mileage as I desire. My life has so many problems, hence I drink as it relaxes me”, says one student on the condition of anonymity. Some people require a reason some don’t even require it.

While we have dwelled upon the why, lets find out what do engineers drink? The owner of wine shop near MVSR Engineering College Nadergul told that mostly Beer and Vodka is purchased by the students in the afternoon. Some students come and start in the morning itself, but if its a particularly cold day, then Whisky and Rum sells too. On being asked if the consumption of alcohol takes place in front of shop, he says that students have their own spots and rarely do students linger about in front of the shop. They buy the stuff and leave as soon as possible. He did not divulge the places, where students go to have a booze party and also refused to let the reporter take a picture in spite of being told that this will make his wine shop really famous.

The easy availability of alcoholic beverages is one factor and also the remote locations of almost all Engineering colleges is one factor in the prevalence of alcholism in the students of these institutions. “Nadergul Cheruvu as the we call it is an ideal spot to bunk classes and have a drink, its an isolated spot and mostly people come here to drink. The all  time activity is having chugging competitions and then throwing the empty beer bottles as far as one can to judge the winner”, says Joey (name changed). This spot is not being used for some months as the Principal and the Sports Director, had raided the place and caught many students in an inebriated condition just before the semester exams. Still many hills surrounding the college are an ideal spot to park your car and have a sip.

"The drinking spot" Credit: Major Payne

When alcohol is available easily there are some consequences to it. There have been accidents that have taken place because students have not yet learned the art of driving, when they are drunk. A first year student became infamous for ramming a seniors car into an oncoming truck when he was high on whiskey, the car was totalled and beyond repair. The picture is shown. We might make contraptions of great wonder but still can’t make them function if we have no sense of self. Fights are a common occurrence between two drunk parties and the students are hardly bothered by them any more. Special events or fests always have those select few, who come and dance at the DJ nite drunk full to the brim and show some moves that would put Rajnikanth to shame.

So are these so called alcoholic heroes, popular in college? “The answer is NO! People, who drink and come to college gross me out”, says Manasa a third year in an Engineering college. “They are not supposed to be drunk in centres of learning”, says she with vehement conviction. So don’t Engineering girls drink? “We do but only in Pubs and that too when someone we trust is around.”

The truth about alcoholism cannot be learned in just a few minutes. You have to be affected by it to know about it. Its an age old and inherent problem with the society per say but the impact it has cannot be ignored. Alcohol can alter the course of ones life. The fact that cannot be denied is the prevalence of it in Engineering colleges. Even tech fests of some colleges are sponsored by Beer companies nowadays so you can see the impact it has on the youth and the Beer barons have sensed it and are ready to publicise & advertise it leaving no stone unturned. So when faced with this predicament or situation in one’s life in the near future or faced it some time already in the past just remember the words said by a very famous poet

“    TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
…………………………..
…………………………..
…………………………..
…………………………..
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
- Robert Frost

Remember its always your choice and your actions that pave the way of your destiny. Choose wisely.

True, the words ’summer holidays’ do have something really sweet connected with them always. Be it fond memories of the school-days’, or the hectic April-Mays of the junior college days, students sure have something nice to share about the ’summer holidays’. “After having faced the exam-fever for so long (the second internals, lab internals, lab externals and finally the external theory exams!) we really seem to deserve peaceful no-work days”, says Swathi, a 2/4 student. We agree, these holidays are definitely juicy fruits of the patience and hard-work.

“I grabbed a trip to Mumbai and Pune, did some adventuring, had fun and got back for my supplimentary exam which was on 5th June. Since this was my first supplimentary exam, I sure was worried about how it would go. I wasn’t sure I would have enough time to finish the entire syllabus. And the paper was one of the toughest subjects of the Production Engineering course – DME (Design of Machine Elements). But I risked it because, the schedule couldn’t fit any better with mom’s schedule. Surprisingly, the trip tremendously increased my concentration ability and focusing power and left me full of enthusiasm. My exam went really well,” says Priyanka, another 3rd year student from the same college.

Vacationing with friends is Priyanka. Credit: Azazel Eyes

Sharath, who is also into Production Engineering at MVSREC doesnt seem to have any set plans for the summer. “I might start blogging; something I’ve been thinking about for a while now. Matter of factly, holidays are meant for complete relaxation for me. So, I don’t fix goals as such. Above all, holidays are when I manage to grab a few extra hours of sleep than usual. That is what I am going to do, this time too”. Well, it is a sure thing, holidays are times when most students sleep more than they generally do. There is so much to do with college on – Bunking, roaming around theatres, impressing girlfriends/ boyfriends, waiting for results, waiting for freshers, trying to catch hold of them, whiling time away at the canteen / sports room et al. All the insomniac night-out online chatting sessions definitely added to our sleepless schedules!

When asked about where he might like travelling to during the holidays, for a vacation Jaiyesh Rao says, “New Zealand! Err… but that doesn’t seem very possible right now. I might limit myself to the loads of movies on my computer, that I haven’t watched due to the exam pressure!”. Also, he doesn’t want to mess with others’ time, so isn’t taking up any new courses now. His only goal as of now, is to “get into a good shape, before the summer ends”, his words. We wouldn’t believe all his words about not being seious towards studies, Jaiyesh has had the reputation of being the top-dog of his class for a couple of semesters already. Blame his modesty for all the biased answers!

Ha Ha... Last minute exam preperation! Credit: Azazel Eyes

While these were some of the freaks of MVSREC, there are indeed a few students around there, who are genuinely working towards making a neat career. Swaroop, who claims to still be ‘a good boy, who vacations only with his parents’, speaks about his plans during these holidays. “Not really great plans this time. Just want to take up some project in the city. Probably an Automobile Training program, that could help me with the BAJA event, that is going to come up soon. This I would do for a learning experience. But if you ask me about serious goals, I’d rather place ‘putting down weight’ as my prime immediate goal!”, he jokes.

Nadia Akhtar, a passed out student tells us about all the things she would miss about the college, ” I have had a really cool set of friends here. I would definitely miss all my times here. I know, it was just a phase of life and it had to pass, but however, this feeling that it is an end doesnt vapourise so easily! These holidays before I move on to my next college, would be very memorable”. Most students of the recent passout batch, we are sure would share these feelings about the college. They were instrumental in bringing the whole mass together, under the name of MVSR Campus Connect, and have together faced times of contentment and dissatisfaction together. They would miss the college-canteen not for the freakingly – unhealthy food it serves, but because of the wide set of smiles that were shared across those flies-infested, dirty wooden tables! Also, the first years aren’t yet done with all of their exams. Thanks to the mighty load of subjects they carry. “My last exam is on 6th July. I have atleast 6 days gap between every exam, and I’m kinda enjoying holidays in between them!”, exclaims Sai Kumar Reddy, a now-first year student of the college

While many 2nd and 3rd year students too are yet to be done with exams as such, (supplimentary exams don’t end till the last week of June), those done with exams are surely cherishing the wilderness of childish summers. Prickly heat doesn’t anymore, disturb young minds set on refreshing themselves. Adventure camps, college-activity groups, vacation – tours, GRE/ CAT/ GMAT/ GATE coachings, motor-driving tutions, guitar classes, are some of the many favorite jobs that students are opting for. If not anything, sleeping for long hours, and not waking up to realize they are in the examination halls, leaves students with a happier mood during the hottest season of the year!

Summer holidays for students are synonymous with parties, movies and lazy summer afternoon siestas. While most of us do give in to these little pleasures that we so yearn for during our semester months, there is a group of students in MVSREC, who believe that summer is just a waste of time. They rather do a lot of productive work for college than spend time at home watching friends or soap opera reruns.

We are talking about the dynamic student cabinet of the MVSR campus connect or better known as the MCC. Even as the entire college has just begun to warm up to the summer these diligent students are hard at work striving to make the college atmosphere and infrastructure a beter place. For those of who you dont know what MCC here is a short refresher course. MVSR Campus Connect(MCC) is a service for the students of the college that is run by the students of the college. They are a non profit and an unofficial project, whose sole purpose is to unite the college as one and make the campus life better for the common good of all the MVSRians. Some services that MCC provides to the student community of MVSR are the SMS alert service, Event organisation, Environmental awareness, Rag aware campaign and many fun clubs. All run for and by the students.

The Annual  general body meeting of the cabinet was held on 1st of June. This meeting was a very important one, as it was the first of this academic year and all the seniors, who will be passing out this year had to give all their peers some words of caution and advice. The meeting was supposed to start at 10.30 am at the student activity centre (SAC) but was delayed by one hour as all the persons had not arrived. The meeting began an hour later than the scheduled time at 11.30 am.

First on the agenda was the announcement of a fund collecting drive for Ajay, a first year student of ECE, who had met with a serious accident at his residence slipping and falling in the bathroom and injuring his head seriously. He is in a coma and on ventilator support. The doctors had performed a a major surgery and the cost of the operation was around Five Lakh rupees. This being a huge amount the students had decided to pitch in and help in any way possible. Some students approached corporate companies and funds worth 50,000 rupees were raised on the very day. As first year students were busy with their exams a decision was taken that some students would go to the exam centre i.e Deccan college to collect donations. A group of 10 students, who had holidays went to collect the money. Around 80,000 rupees were collected.So far donations worth Rs. 1,50,000 have been collected from the staff, students and the management. The donations are still pouring in.

The principal with members of the new student cabinet. Credit: Cynosure MCC

Second on the agenda was the allotment of the posts by the Seniors to all the cabinet and all the students were allottedposts according to their capabilities judged by their performance in the group discussions and personal interviews. Around forty high level posts were allotted to students from first, second and third years. All the selected members took the oath to strive for excellence in all projects they take up and  swore not to let the unity of the college fade away.

After this all the Founding members of MCC Advait, Rohit Reddy, Rohit Ahuja, Priyanka and Amit gave thier words of advice and shared all their experiences with the newly elected cabinet and encouraged to take this organisation to new levels. Juniors like Joy, Sahiti, Santosh and Suharsh thanked them for all that they had done and making a change in the college.

Last on the agenda was the new list of projects to be taken up by the Student community.This list included:

1. Renovation of the student activity centre.

2. Makeover for the canteen.

3. Organisation of a technical fest.

4. Setting up a Coffee Day kiosk in the gardens.

(since the date of the meeting and the publication of this article significant developments have been made in the first two points of the To-do list.)

It is a well known saying that where there is a will there is a way. Students of this college have shown a will for change and they are working really hard  to achieve what they desire. Santosh puts it aptly, “When we want something we have to work for it and we are prepared to sweat and toil. No pain no gain!”, with a smile on his face.

VidYouth wishes this young and energetic team all the best in all its future endeavours. For these students sky is not the limit… it is something beyond that!

A fresh under-graduate student, just out of the crowded clasrooms of Intermediate in corporate institutions, may be excited to join an Engineering college and start a new chapter of his or her life, but for one niggling recurring thought – Ragging. For all the anti-ragging measures taken by the college mangement and all the claims made by the police and the government, the truth is that ragging does exist. VidYouth investigates to what extent ragging takes place in colleges in and around Hyderabad. For all of you, who don’t still know what ragging is, here is what Wikipedia says, “Ragging is a form of abuse on newcomers to an educational institutions. It is almost similar to the Western form, known as hazing, but is commonly much more severe. Some senior students force the unorganized newcomers to undergo several forms of mental, physical and sexual abuses. The juniors are usually too frightened to resist their organized group of tormentors”.

Among the colleges we investigated, this is all about MVSR Engineering College i.e., Maturi Venkata Subba Rao Engineering College. It was founded in 1981 with three disciplines. Over the years it has grown from strength to strength and is a premier technical institute in Andhra Pradesh. The total student strength at present is over 2300. The truth is with such large student body there is bound to be incidents of ragging and our investigations have confirmed the fact.

MVSR has been around for over 25 years and in its history, there have been no suicides related to ragging. The incidents are minor and the ragging looks to be serious but it’s just fun.  VY went around the college and interviewed some juniors and seniors regarding ragging and here is what we found out. On being asked that if the ragging they had undergone was serious or if they were subjected to any abuse by their seniors, a student had this to quote, “No. I was never ragged severely… It was just funny ragging”. When asked what is funny ragging .The student a second yearite now, said that he and his friends were made to remove their shoes and socks and all the socks were thrown in a bundle and were made to wear any two that came to their hands first. They had a lot of fun doing it and the seniors were pretty chilled out and were not at all scary as they were supposed to be. Joy Daniel says, “A group of fourth yearites, ECE branch led by Dharneesh and Samanth made me laugh to bits while being ragged. They made a group of juniors stand in a circle and a guy who did not speak telugu in the midlle and made him sing a telugu song while the other guys were made to pitch in with various sound effects.This probably was the most hilarious experience I ever had”. Of the 22 people interviewed here, almost all had a pleasant experience to share and had enjoyed their interaction with the seniors. Few of them did have hard feelings and were ragged a little more than the others because they now realized that they had shown ‘Attitude’, as termed by seniors.

One of the addas for ragging. Credit: Cynosure MVSREC

Attitude, according to seniors means  juniors not complying with the seniors’ demands and resisting or thinking that they cannot be ragged.There are some juniors who think they are untouchable and thats when trouble starts and a senior is forced rag a junior as it casts a doubt on the seniors’ ‘izzat’ says Bharat a fourth yearite. Showing anything of this so called attitude is an open invitation to attract all seniors to rag you a little more when all you would have gotten away with was a simple song and dance number. As a female student puts it, “I was asked by a couple of girl-seniors, why I was wearing bangles. I told them I wore them because I liked wearing them. Now, they were annoyed. (No reason. Or maybe they were just acting like they were annoyed). This was attitude according to them and they told me that they’ll make life in college impossible for me. Two years down, we got to be real good friends. If I’d manage to remember some good days from my college life, those days would certainly be a part of it”. This happens in most cases if you show attitude in MVSR. One does get ragged more but they end up being friends with seniors. “I am friends with all the people who ragged me and they have been such a comfort in the otherwise boring mundane college life”, says Dhanamjai a third yearite. A second year student recollects that he had back answered to some seniors and was made to say the filthiest bad words and write them down in his book. He did not mind that at all and had fun while inventing new filthy words. Those seniors are good friends of his now.

Well all places have exceptions, there are incidents when things have gone a little out of hand and there are cases of juniors ending up fighting with seniors and also seniors getting a little too aggressive. Abhay Singhania (name changed) recalls an incident where a senior was trying to show off in front of  girls by taking ragging a little too seriously and was bashed up by the junior for crossing the limits and this later resulted in a full scale fight with both the affected parties resorting to outside help to settle scores ultimately it involved a showdown outside the college premises which was resolved with breaking of car windows and a lot of bones. Abhay doesn’t want to elaborate much because of his close involvement in the fight. Suharsh recalls a recent incident that happened, where a second yearite was involved in a fight with the seniors from fourth year during the college cultural fest ‘SANGAMAM’ and the matter was resolved with the help of police. According to him the fight between a second year IT student and fourth year Civil student was ego related. The civil fourth yearite brought some outsiders to the college and beat up the second yearite but as there were outsiders and the police were stationed as a precautionary measure in advance the fight was stopped almost immediately by those outsiders getting thrashed and sent to jail. Although bashing up seniors is not a great idea if you are a junior, there are such rare cases.

MVSR campus connect  team believes that it is important for a junior to know what the limits of ragging are so that they can say ‘No’ when those boundaries are being crossed. Commendable job is being done in this regard by the team and all juniors are shown videos that educate them about ragging and also teach them that when they become seniors it’s bad to rag their juniors. This has resulted in reduced ragging incidents and juniors are surprised and rather shocked about the less attention they receive. As one first yearite puts it,  “I haven’t been ragged at all by my seniors and I’m into second year already, never expected this would happen! We walk past seniors and they don’t even think that we exist”. We did find that ragging does not hold any interest to most of the seniors as they are busy with their own work. The average senior will at most ask for ‘BD’ i.e., bio data; make you sing a song or give you his notes to write or records to complete and that is something most juniors are ready to do. The MCC team does not believe in discrimination between the years and its evident from their recruitment policy as all are selected on merit and not on their seniority level. They are also given positions according to their capabilities and not on a seniors whim or fancy. All have to go through a screening process and a group discussion to get selected. These facts are evident from the point that there are 32 first years in the Mcc cabinet. Thus if you are a first yearite in this college you have equal opportunities like your seniors.

A group of students of all years. Credit: Cynosure MVSREC

There are certain ragging hot spots in all colleges. VY spoke to some seniors in this regard. The ragging zones as Joe, a senior puts it, are the parking lot, the basketball court and the cricket grounds. All these lie within the campus and the lecturers are never that far away and even though the ragging might be minimal, the punishment is maximum if caught. There are other ragging addas like the famous Nadergul Cheruvu, where there is no one around for miles. “I was taken to this place and made to act out a lot of stuff including the legendary basketball dance that the basketball team is so fond of making juniors do. The basketball dance means a Junior, who plays basketball would be made to do all the moves that he does off the court and that to the evergreen Teen maar. All the dribbles, fakes shoots and hoops are included in this dance. I had the time of my life as no one but the seniors and my friends were around to see it”, says Joe. The other places where juniors could possibly get ragged outside the college are at the bus-stop outside the college and if they are unlucky enough some buffaloes would get to see their worst dance moves and bear their singing in Nadergul village. Ragging also exists in the college buses, but it’s the mildest form of ragging as there are lecturers in the bus. Hence the seniors rarely get carried away.

Please don’t let down your guard just yet as there are some people in the college, who are really infamous they have been around the college for more than 5 years and have no other job but to terrorize the juniors and ask them for the infamous ‘Party’, which supplies them with their daily fix of smokes and booze. Chain Rakesh and Pichha Nikhil are a few to name, who belong to such categories, they are prone to ending up drunk at all college fests and are known to pick up fights with anyone. Rahul Sharma (Name changed)  says that he and his friend Rohit were made to give a beer party to his seniors as they were Management quota students and they had to shell out 1000 bucks between them to satisfy their seniors demands. Their friend Harish did not oblige the seniors and was ragged more than the others but he was lucky that things did not get out of hand. “Now we have no respect for them anymore and don’t even acknowledge their presence”, they say. “The student security teams at all events take care that no one is ragged and such chronic trouble makers are kept in constant surveillance by a group of students”, says a student coordinator. Also some last remnants of the legendary dreaded ‘Eagles Gang’ still exist that are known to terrorize juniors by scaring the shit out of them. Eagles gang was so popular for their violence and aggressive tactics five years back that the hit Telugu movie ‘Sye’ is rumoured to be be filmed on them. It is sort of an urban legend within the college premises. This gang no longer exists and all the members have moved on in life. Some fakers claim to be members of this gang and get away with serious cases of ragging. Students say that sometimes these people don’t even belong to the college. There have been instances of juniors coming in autos being stopped and taken to places away from the college to be ragged.

Most of the other seniors, when they see a junior in trouble, they do try to bail them out of such sticky situations but if something serious does happen, there is no need to be scared. The college has an entourage of security guards, who will bail juniors out of such situations. The survey done by VY shows that there is an active anti-ragging committee in the college.This committee consist of staff and anonymous student members, who are selected by the staff to check on the ragging. This team changes every year and the present details are not available so far. The website will be updated as soon as we come to know about it. Meanwhile if you have any queries regarding ragging you can mail in at info@mvsrcampusconnect.org . Santosh tells us, “The in charge of physical training, Mr.Arjuman, was actively involved in controlling ragging”.  There are other precautions also taken by the management to avoid ragging. Pratyush tells us, “The senior students were not allowed to linger around near the 1st year block. Also a list of punishments was displayed in noticeable spots like the canteen and first year block”.

Ragging in MVSR like any other college, exists but it’s not as severe as in many other colleges mainly due to the active involvement of the senior students themselves in educating juniors against ragging and also because of a strong bond between juniors and seniors. It is common to see groups of students hanging out which comprise of students from first to fourth year. The events of the college are organized by student volunteers from all years and this paves way for a better college atmosphere. Ragging here is truly what it should be, “an introduction of seniors and juniors for a better future”.

Ragging is a social evil that exists in the colleges all over the country. It takes all forms from mild to severe. It is important for a junior to realise that ragging is not a seniors right and he has every right to say no to it. In MVSR this thought is reinforced. But if you do face severe ragging, the MVSR campus connect team runs a RAG-AWARE campaign for all juniors wherein they are educated about ragging and also where they can make complaints and air their thoughts by email. All the complaints are brought to the notice of the college management.

The link to the website is given: http://www.mvsrcampusconnect.org/
VY hopes that your journey towards your future remains pleasant! ]]> http://www.vidyouth.com/2009/05/27/ragging-a-myth-or-reality/feed/ 0 http://www.vidyouth.com/2009/02/01/mvsr-energy-day/ http://www.vidyouth.com/2009/02/01/mvsr-energy-day/#comments Sun, 01 Feb 2009 17:54:50 +0000 Azazel Eyes http://vidyouth.org/?p=719

The Renewable Energy club of MVSREC worked in sync with staff and student volunteers from the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Electronics and Electrical Engineering in facilitating their annual event MVSREC Energy Day. The event aimed at young engineers discussing the need for studying, understanding and consequently developing new techniques and models for preventing Energy crisis in the world. Various ideas were discussed by lecturers as well as student enthusiasts regarding means and ways in which to reduce energy wastages and attempts were made to understand the need for employing non-conventional energy production methods such as Solar energy trapping, Wind energy storage, Tidal Energy stockpiling and the likes.

The inaugural function included messages by the principal Prof. Mr. P.A. Sastry, Dr.V.V.Satyanarayana and Dr. G.Ravindranath, Heads of the Mechanical Engineering Department and the E.E.E. Department respectively. They recalled all the ventures of students and lecturers of MVSR in the fields of renewable energy and the innumerable ideas implemented by students at various levels in the recognition of non-conventional energy resources as a part of, as well as after under-graduation. They spoke about the need for young citizens to find out ways in which to save energy so as to prevent the hazard of energy dearth for the future generations. The scarcity of energy, they said, can not be won over, unless we realize its peril and begin our strife against it in this very moment. It was discussed that the amount of electricity being produced by conventional methods today might barely be sufficient to meet energy needs of the growing industrial world. With emergence of modern infrastructure to comfort human lives, the requirement for energy would multiply with the years.

30 years down the line, the earth might be devoid of ready petroleum for usage and we might not be able to produce enough electricity from the conventional options, to make up for it. So, it is necessary that we hurry up and find out better means of energy survival, and this conference was all about discussing that same prerequisite. “It was a greater success than it was last year. This year we had more than 70 papers presented. We are glad many students from various OU-affiliated colleges made it to the conference and the competitions. Their enthusiasm makes us determined to take a step further, and invite students from colleges all over the city to participate in this event next year…”, says Rohit Ahuja, a E.E.E. student and one of the chief coordinators of the MVSR Energy Day.

In addition to the marvelous number of papers, there were also quite a number of working/ demonstrative models constructed by students, exhibiting various types of power-production methods available. Also, presenters of the models elucidated to a panel of judges and students the working principles behind their models and the feasibilities of these novel techniques. Also many innovative concepts were spoken about by participants, by which they believed a revolution in the field of energy generation is inevitable, in the very imminent future. Students also made impressive posters to explain a diversity of energy resources. “Geothermal energy is one great energy asset we have. It is highly reliable and dependable and if properly trapped into an energy reserve can generate more energy than what we are producing from hydro electricity today. It is considered a weak resource more because of the extreme amounts of initial investment in demands, and because of the tedious research that needs to be done before choosing the correct location for a setup. But, if we have enough financial funding that these two factors are ignored, we might happily survive any height of energy crisis that might possibly arise”, says a participant who displayed a demonstrative model of a geo-thermal energy production project. He also explicated for us the working of that setup.

Various forms of energy resources excluding hydro-projects, petroleum energy and petroleum based resources are classified as non-conventional energy resources. They chiefly comprise of solar energy, wind energy, geo-thermal energy, nuclear energy, tidal energy, bio- fuels et al. All these forms of energy can be trapped and guided through processes that lead to production of electricity as an end product. Evidently, electricity today is the most useful form of energy, as it can be converted to other forms and re-utilized most efficiently. As growing citizens it is of our responsible interest that we need to estimate how much of the regular resources should be replaced by more sophisticated and modern techniques so as to nip this problem-to-be in the bud. We need to suppress the shortage by decreasing wastage at primary level as well as by looking up for better ways to produce sufficient energy. After all, it is for comfort of living that all of man’s creations are. If our comfort today might lead to a terrible soreness in the life of tomorrow, it is our duty to mend it on day one. The Energy Day at MVSREC succeeded in sowing the seeds of responsibility and encouraged scientific thought to fight the problem; once again successful in spreading the right message to responsible and intelligent engineers of tomorrow. ]]> http://www.vidyouth.com/2009/02/01/mvsr-energy-day/feed/ 0 http://www.vidyouth.com/2009/01/25/civil-engineers-camp-at-iit-kanpur/ http://www.vidyouth.com/2009/01/25/civil-engineers-camp-at-iit-kanpur/#comments Sun, 25 Jan 2009 06:56:05 +0000 Azazel Eyes http://vidyouth.org/?p=396

Held during the summer every year, the camp enrolls around 60 sophomore students, from various colleges throughout India that offer a course of civil-engineering at under-graduate level. Civil engineering being

At the workshop Credit: Azazel Eyes

a course necessarily demanding high levels of intellect, work hardship, and the drive to take challenges face-on, students for this camp are selected on the basis of their overall academic, co-curricular and extra-curricular record of their school and young college days.

Siddharth says, “I definitely did not have something I would call a ‘great’ academic record. I was a good student, but never a top-dog. I had always made sure that I was an all-rounder in terms of sports and arts, which paid off handsomely, in the form of my selection into this summer-camp, an experience of a life-time. I met people of grades higher than mine, and some of them far lower. In the first couple of days, it gave me a slight complex of inferiority, but when the end of the glorious days came, I was more than proud of myself. All that really mattered was the person I had built out of myself, in spite of a bunch of friends doing amazingly well academically around me. The camp taught me more about myself, my inner self, probably more because, this was the first time I was cut-off from my real

A little paper work Credit: Azazel Eyes

neighborhood, altogether for a month!” On being asked what was the course and objective of the workshop, he answers, “

The main objective of the workshop was to train students for actual work of a civil engineer which he is to become in his immediate future. Prime focus was on elucidating expert projects around the world, their construction techniques, material selection, geometry et al. The hows and whys behind successful structures were explained to us in meticulous detail. We were shown presentations with original pictures from these building sites so as to furnish us with practical details. Besides these informative sessions, we were also exposed to vigorous exercise so as to make us fit for the last one-week camp, when we would go visiting sites near and around IIT Delhi. The toughest part was the 15 kilometer run that we were to take up everyday, around the IIT Kanpur campus. Yes, Everyday! ”

More about his encounters he says, “In Kanpur, there is probably more life on the IIT campus, than in the entire city. Once outside the campus you are bound to be lost in a village with scarcely any facilities. The best of hotels, hospitals, theatres, libraries… all are in fact within the walls of the huge campus. For us, therefore, never came up the need to try and explore beyond those limits. And moreover, the campus in itself needed so much time to be explored, that the thought of crossing borders failed to occur. We had tight schedules for more than 14 hours everyday that included talks, lectures and presentations relating to major constructional experiments and feats from around the globe. Mega-structures were reduced to plain simple words. Everyday was a new world, a new wonder when we got to know those structures were made by people very much like what we would be in our forthcoming years. All in all, it was a good learning period.”

At the site Credit: Azazel Eyes

We also asked Siddharth how it was mingling with such diversity, youngsters from so many distinct personalities belonging to different cultures and with dissimilar mindsets. He says he was more than happy meeting so many kinds of people. “Initially,” he says, “I thought it would be a boring month. I was sure I would get bored with these people. Or at least I would end up having differences with most of my groupies. But as it was one week past, we got so attached to each other that it felt like a long friendship already. Towards the end of the workshop we could hardly believe the month was getting over! Our coordinators were seniors, M. Tech. students, and they actually ragged us, it was fun though. They made us dance, sing, act like old movie stars, and forced us to watch movies till late nights and early mornings. Though it felt tiring then, peeping back into those memories today, I know of the deep togetherness that ragging brought about. It feels like the best way to get rid of the communication gap, and therefore build a stronger team. As days passed team leaders seemed cheerfully ready to assist us in every possible way, making things much easier than in their absence.”

On being asked what was/ were his best favorite moments during the one-month long workshop, he says he enjoyed the sports sessions most. They had compulsory sports everyday during evenings to make certain of their physical well-being for the last one week site visits, in Delhi. Also the informal sessions that they held as the last thing everyday, he says, were energizing. The ‘civil-engineering’ part of the whole camp was more like a side-effect. The camp reminded us at every point, that we were individuals first, and civil-engineers next. It also pointed to us at every point that as civil engineers, it is barely sufficient that we mug up notes and top

Not the least...FUN! Credit: Azazel Eyes

examinations. What was more important is creativity and innovation that comes only to well-rounded personalities than to book-worms. Having been a part of this workshop, I no longer considered my weak grades a sufficient remark against my skill and aptitude to stand as a successful civil engineer. I am proud of myself today. Those were the best days of my life till now.” Also he speaks about a student from the north that couldn’t stand the extreme climate as opposed to that in his birth place and took ill within the first couple of days. But then, he took it up as a challenge than looking at it as a problem, and proved to be one of the most punctual, obedient students and inspired the rest with his astounding performance throughout the camp.

Thus ended, our conversation with Siddharth, a 3/4 B.E.(Civil Engineering) student of MVSREC. It was overwhelming getting to know of this wonderful experience of his, in his words. This camp is organized every year, and invitations are sent to only a few privileged institutions all-over India. The official website of IIT Kanpur announces the summer-camp well in advance. So, civil engineers around, keep an eye on it, who knows, you might be the next one sharing another electrifying episode with us next year!

Change is constant.This is an inherent truth,but living in India and studying in an engineering college has taught most of us at least one thing over the years and that is  that change is impossible.We all belong to a generation of people with the “Chalta Hai ” attitude  that has been hardwired into our cerebral hemispheres.We follow what  other people do.Yet there is an elite group that dares do something different and follow an offbeat path, not knowing where their journey will take them. There is such a group of  young upcoming engineers in Mvsr engineering college that have set up upon this “other” path and have made pretty good sense of it .

An intrepid group of students from MVSR  led by Advait Singh Thakur  have started a service Called”Mvsr Campus Connect” with the sole aim of uniting the differnet branches of the college and also passing  on the information regarding  the college in the fastest possible way .This service has caught up like a raging fire in a dry jungle in the college and is the current hot topic of discussion in the college and all engineering college circles of hyderabad.Even the faculty and the management of the college has been really impressed with this service.That is a real ggod sign considering the fact that they were not that supportive of this idea initially but now its a differnet story altogether.
“Campus connect is a great service i feel like its the best thing that has happened to our college since  i have joined it ” says Dhanamjai a third year student of the college.

“Wow cool man ,wish i had the same service in my college too this sounds too cool ” says Utkarsh Gupta a student from an engineering college in hyderabad.

These are just some of the thoughts of the people who are experiencing the power of campus connect and people who are hearing about it at other places.the MCC family at present has about 2300 active members which is a fantastic  response considering the fact that the service had been started just 4 months back.

So you must be wondering what exactly is this MVSR campus connect that i have been talking about for so long.Vidyouth got around talking to the guy behind this entire concept that is Advait and here are a few excerpts from the interview.

VY:  Advait.! Can u please tell us what exactly is MCC?

Advait: Mvsr campus connect(MCC) is a service for the students of the college that is run by the students of the college.We are a non profit and an unofficial project whose sole purpose is to unite the college as one and make the campus life better for the common good of all the MVSRians

VY: What sort of services do you offer?

Advait: The most basic and initial service that we offer is the SMS alert service that is a rage in the college .We send out alerts for anything under the sun regarding the college and events taking place which are in the interest of the students of the college.So once you subscribe to the service by paying a one time fee 25 rs .You will get alerts about your exam schedule ,any postponements in the exam or even regarding any traffic jams that are found en route as soon as we get the information and after we verify it we send the message to our 2300 members hoping that it helped them.Recently a faculty member was in need of blood of a rare group we sent out the message saying blood was required and we had about 50 donors within an hour.even i hadn’t realized that this service would be such a useful one.

VY: So you think this Service has brought the entire college together as one?

Advait : That was the basic of idea starting this service.The members of the core team and I are from different branches of the college. The MCC team at present working  for the project is a mix of students from all branches and all years .Its not a CSe or Ece initiative Its an Mvsr initiative.

VY: Are there any other services that MCC offers?

Advait: Initially it was meant to be just a SMs service but then people put in their ideas and now we have a complete college  website inclusive of a college editorial board,a college blog,an Email service where every member is given a camusconnect.org eamil id that is their official email id.We have students doing interviews of the staff  and  management we have already asked the principal questions posed by the students .the segment is called “Walk the Talk” and we have lined up other faculty members and some heads of corporate companies as guests on the show.” The entire video can be seen at the campus connect website.We also have started Literary and cultural clubs ,An eco club and many clubs that are in the process of being setup.
We also have an MCC office coming up soon in the college.I would like to thank the management for that.

VY:Wow thats nice! I would like to ask where or how do you see your baby or brainchild the MCC 2 years from now?

Avait: (Laughs) I haven’t thought much about that yet but i do see it as a professional body in the college that takes the college to new levels .We have no dearth of talent here in the college.I want MCC to unite the entire college as one and show everyone that we are united and  truly connected.

VY:Vidyouth wishes you and your team all the best.Thanks for talking to us.

Advait: Your welcome.
MCC and all its features can be seen at the website :http://hangout.mvsrcampusconnect.org/home

Advait can be contacted at :(advait@mvsrcampusconnect.org) ]]> http://www.vidyouth.com/2008/12/17/mvsr-campus-connect/feed/ 0 http://www.vidyouth.com/2008/12/14/from-the-mvsrec-campus/ http://www.vidyouth.com/2008/12/14/from-the-mvsrec-campus/#comments Sun, 14 Dec 2008 18:10:15 +0000 Azazel Eyes http://vidyouth.org/?p=743

College days are the best days of one’s life. They only become more important parts of life with memories of a cheerful environment, friendly lecturers, like-minded peers, fun-events and a pathetic-yet-popular canteen. That is the very nature of memories, students carry along into their career and personal lives, when they pass the best phase of their lives, as a part of MVSR Engineering College.

Being one of the premier engineering colleges in the city of Hyderabad, Maturi Venkata Subba Rao Engineering College, (MVSREC) Nadergul, proudly acclaims of being one of the only six engineering colleges in the city, affiliated to the reputed Osmania University.
The college has celebrated 25 years of excellence in the nobility of providing flawless professional education, last year. They provide courses in all the main stream engineering courses including electronics, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, computer science engineering and information technology. They also flaunt NBA accreditation for most of the above said courses. The college plumes itself on the high percentage of campus placements it gets every year.

The college is located far away from the city disorder, and is spread over a vast area of about 28,000 sq.m housing 45 classrooms, 50 laboratories, 6 drawing halls, 5 conference/ audio visual halls and offices. It has separate buildings for laboratories and classrooms for each department. The teaching staff is 145 in number of members, of who most are post graduates and many possess a Ph.D. They also have 160 skilled supporting staff. They have a well-furnished library and reference section, with over 37,000 volumes of books. A new building has also been constructed for the purpose of making a larger library that would be functional within the next couple of months. Internet facility is provided for students for reference.
In spite of so many good facilities around the campus, it is the canteen that remains the top favorite place of the college for most students, for obvious reasons. The canteen, though does not serve the best food on earth, is loved by students and staff alike, because of all the memories that they build up there. The canteen remains the place where every student always records the very necessary ‘above 80% attendance’!

The Physical Education department provides a spacious sports room, and eminent trainers. They have infrastructural facility for table-tennis, chess, carom-board, basket-ball, volley-ball, badminton and football. The college also announces yearly scholarships for students excelling in various sports, in order to encourage more number of students to take part in extra-curricular activities. It is not very surprising that the college flaunts state, national and international level players and achievers in many sports.

The major student body in MVSR comprises of MVSR Campus Connect, an initiative by students, to bring about social, cultural and political awareness among youth. It takes up many issues under various clubs in the college. These student clubs include The Eco Club, The Literary and Creative Club, The Technical Team and The Social Awareness club. As groups under the MCC, they work collectively within their groups as well as in sync with the other groups, thus bringing quick results from their planned inputs. The website also provides students with information related to various necessary topics like GRE/ TOEFL education, Voting rights/ registration, NEWS from the campus et al. The MCC would be responsible for the organization various events that are held in the college, during the year. MCC also hosts the ‘Walk- The- Talk’ show, which features interviews of reputed members from the staff and management of MVSR. On this show, students clarify doubts regarding the college, career planning, further education, challenges to face etc. Besides all this, MCC also came up with an SMS alert service for students and staff members of the college, delivering quick and reliable information through SMS’ on registered phone numbers. Truly Connected.

The college hosts two major National events every year. First one being, the multi-department technical festival – Samavarthan, the second one is the Annual Cultural Festival- Sangamam. These events are flawlessly well managed and implemented, from collection of sponsorships to facilitation on celebrity shows. They have always been grand successes measured in terms of the number of students that attended the events, which only increased year-by-year. In addition to these, students also celebrate the Founder’s Day and the Desi Day, on a grand scale.

When asked about what she likes about the college, a final year student says, “We simply love walking around in the campus. It is peaceful and so much unlike my room. I really enjoy the change.” While a 2nd year student from the Mechanical department says, “I am dying to get to the third year, so I can work with the lathe and the drilling machines. I am bored with the second year labs, though.” No comments.

We also tried asking students, what they dislike about the college. Among a few others problems, what most students agreed on were unhygienic environment in the canteen, and not-so-good Internet availability. But, students have themselves come up with a solution for one of the two major problems. They said, “The Eco-club is looking into the issue of improving hygiene in the canteen. We are planning for getting insecticides to keep flies away. We will also find out a way to get better net- connectivity on the campus.”

That sure is good spirit. It is definitely going to work out wonders in making the college the number one of its sort, in the very near future. The following are a few interesting websites related to MVSREC. They are worth giving a click.

http://www.mvsrcampusconnect.org/
http://mvsrcampusconnect.blogspot.com/ ]]> http://www.vidyouth.com/2008/12/14/from-the-mvsrec-campus/feed/ 0 http://www.vidyouth.com/2008/07/28/food-for-some-thought/ http://www.vidyouth.com/2008/07/28/food-for-some-thought/#comments Sun, 27 Jul 2008 19:32:58 +0000 Major Payne http://vidyouth.org/?p=800 Some times in our lives we get attached to certain people, sometimes to certain things or it may be certain places. This got me thinking about, what in our small but significant college life is the dearest to us. What is the thing that attracts us the most towards it?

What is it that makes the routine grinding that we as students undergo a little less unbearable? What is it that brings us closer to our friends? So many questions! So thinking what means  the most to me in my college , frankly it is not easy because I don’t think much on the first hand, the first  place that came to my mind is the college Canteen. Yes people the ultimate “Adda” of all the college junta. So I set upon my journey to find more about my canteen . Frankly when I thought about my canteen I couldn’t come up with much. And suddenly; my refuge, my private place, the canteen became a mystery to me. May be even bigger a mystery than how much IQ Rakhi Savant has? Or what made me go watch Love story 2050?

I had to take help of all my friends in college. That included stopping them in the middle of their lunch, waking them up from their sleep and nicking some stuff of their plates. But on the whole, it was a great experience. I found out a lot of stuff I already knew and also I found some stuff that maybe I could never have thought about in my wildest dreams.

Firstly, I would like to say that structure wise, my canteen is a place where you would not like to send your worst enemies. The entrance to it is like a prison with just a small door. Much fight break out on who gets to enter and catch a seat first or maybe you have to wait at the invisible red light where you have to stop for the traffic coming in or going out or just standing there. It’s not such a happy thing to do when you have hippos swimming in your tummy.

The seating facility is great but only in quantity not in quality. All you get is plastic chairs that looks like the batch of first plastic chairs ever made and you could make a fortune selling them as antiques. Tables are coated with grime accumulated over the years that can make your white shirt black. But one thing you can be assured of is that of companions while you eat. By saying, ‘Companions’, I do not mean your friends but it is the ‘Flies’. These flies hover around you like the helicopters circling Godzilla in the movie. The number of flies is huge and some utterly bored people have made it a sport to kill flies in a limited time. The current record is held by a third year; 14 flies in one minute.

Well, the food is nothing! You practically get no variety and you end up eating the same thing again in less than a week, even if you eat a different thing on the  menu each day. The drinks are limited to a few brands and that’s because the canteen owner does not have a great reputation with the distributors, thus making us suffer the indignity of telling our friends “Hey mate… what do you want to drink? ‘XYZ’ or water?”. I agree that the cost fixed is not that high, but still for the quality you get, it’s a queen’s ransom. It is just like investing your money into dead assets that give you no return, no satisfaction but only heartache. Phew! The place is as clean as… well; let one of my friends tell it in his very own words… “Apollo hospitals’ bathrooms are better than our canteen” which sadly stands true as a fact.

But, despite so many faults and fallacies, why do I still find more than a 200 people always in the canteen? What does our canteen have that keeps attracting students to it like women to shopping sales? I was stuck up at a dead end till a little bit of further probing, blew my already fragile thought process into smithereens.

Then, in my quest for my elusive answer for the question, “Why do we get attached to our canteen?” In the process of asking my college mates I found that out. Nobody comes to canteen for the food. They have a higher motive to it. Despite the few facilities, exorbitant costs and s**t hygiene, most of us are attached to the canteen.

“I love the canteen because it’s the only place I get to be myself and no one can push me out of the class”, “I feel comfortable in the canteen because it’s the place where I get to meet all my friends from different branches”; these comments opened my eyes as to why our college canteen is always full despite it being the crappiest place in college. It’s not the food; it’s the thought that counts. Just goes to show that when you are with your closest friends, you are free… even crap food will taste like heaven. This is because a student requires friends more than his food, a student is a being who can live without food and water or hell, maybe even his phone or computer but not his pals. Here I would like to make you aware of the importance of the canteen in the exact words I was told about it, by perhaps a very philosophical person. “Man needs stories, stories that are ingrained in their life. Canteen is a place where stories are made, stories that we remember for the rest of our lives, things that changed us forever, it may be a crush, maybe the first fight you were involved in. Classes you may forget, marks you wont remember, what you remember is the story, the story of your life”.

Honestly that changed my complete outlook about the canteen. It no longer is a place that one goes to relax. It’s a part of our lives. It’s a way of our life. So, no matter how dark our canteen maybe, how dirty it may be, it’s still a part of our life. One of the best parts of our lives. One more thing I realized is that a canteen is not made by its facilities; it’s made by the students. It couldn’t mean more than a building to others, but to people who understand its importance, it is special.

One special existence, one special space, one special freedom, one special life. The canteen is special to those who accept to own it. Own it not as materialistic property. As in, not what it physically means, but ‘to own’ like accepting it as a piece of their life’s pie. We relish it for long years, even if that piece comes from the dirty canteen kitchen.  ;-P