Highlights of the Academic Year 2019-20

Innovation Cell

LSR was selected by MHRD’s Innovation Cell (MIC) for the constitution of Innovation Council in the college to promote innovation among its students. The Council has been actively taking various steps to promote innovation and entrepreneurship endeavours among students by hosting a multitude of talks, competitions and workshops.  Some events organised this year include:

  1. Talkwith  Ramesh Pokhriyal, Honourable Minister of HRD, on ‘Innovation for Resurgent India’ under India First Leadership Talk Series on 22nd August 2019.
  2. Organization of Innovation Day on 15th October to commemorate the birth anniversary of A.P.J. Abdul Kalam through a host of activities including an interactive session with Mrs. Rakesh Sharma, a book discussion competition, an innovation project competition.
  3. One day workshop on “Awareness of Air Quality and Public Health” on November 2, 2019 by Dr. Chirashree Ghosh, Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Studies, University of Delhi.
  4. Hosting of the internal leg of Smart India Hackathon, a national level innovation competition on 24th January 2020 for developing ideas in areas like renewable energy generation, geo-tracking of waste and rain-water harvesting. Six teams from Lady Shri Ram College for Women were nominated further for a national level competition.

Several enriching talks under the ‘Leadership Talk’ Series were organised during the COVID-19 related lockdown. Some of these included interactions with:

  • Abhishek Suryawanshi, Director, Wikipedia project ‘Swastha’
  • K Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of India.
  • Anil D.Sahasrabudhe, Chairman, AICTE
  • Partha Chakraborty, Chairman National Digital Library, Ex-Director, IIT Kharagpur.
  • Abhishek Singh, CEO, My Gov
  • VK Saraswat, Member NITI Aayog
  • Anand Deshpande, Founder, Chairman & Managing Director, PersistentSystems Ltd
  • Shradha Sharma, Founderand Chief Editor, YourStory.com. 

A mental health phone app titled ‘Mann’zar: Body Positivity, has been developed under LSR’s Innovation Cell. Although body image issues are pervasive in society and are linked to other mental health conditions such as anxiety and eating disorders, very few avenues are available for their management. This was the reason underlying the development of the mobile app focusing on body positivity. In order to make the app accessible to all, there are no costs involved in downloading or using it. The app is specially geared towards Indian youth of all genders. It can also be used with ease in both Hindi and English.

Research methodology workshops for faculty members

A full day workshop was organized by IQAC-LSR on 31st August, 2019 for the faculty of the college on the ‘Role of ICT in Teaching and Research.’ The primary objective of the sessions was to provide faculty members a comprehensive understanding of the introductory and advanced technology tools that can be effectively used for teaching, research and data analysis. The sessions were designed to enable the faculty to upgrade their teaching and research skills and to develop competence in integrating technology into the teaching-learning process and effectively guide their own research and students’ research work. The topics covered included:

  • ‘Role of Artificial Intelligence and links it’s with Education’ by Prof. M.M Pant (Former vice-chancellor, IGNOU)
  • ‘Nuisances of the Cyber World’ by Mr. Neeraj Aarora, a practising advocate and cyber security expert

‘Using Excel for data entry and data analysis’ by Dr. Geetanjali Sahi.

Efforts to enhance physical well-being of LSR community

Many events were conducted during the year to enhance the physical well-being of the LSR community. One of these was the celebration of Yoga Day on 21st June. During the lockdown, Yoga Day was celebrated online. 73 cadets from NCC LSR took the initiative to celebrate International Yoga Day by performing yoga at their home and creating their video while performing yoga. This activity was supervised by 2 teachers.

In another initiative on physical well-being NCC LSR organized a march in the college followed by a Nukkad Natak on the 30th September 2019 to highlight the menace of drug and tobacco addiction amongst the youth of our country. 76 Cadets took part in the march. The nukkad natak not only showed the dark side of substance abuse but also motivated the youth to walk on the path envisioned by Mahatma Gandhi, who not only condemned the use of drugs but also gave the idea of ‘Swachh Bharat’.

After the outbreak of the pandemic COVID-19, Aarogya Setu, an initiative of the government of India, was launched to keep the public aware of the number of cases, affected zones and symptoms of the virus. Organized by the 4DBGN, under the supervision of mentors, 137 cadets personally downloaded the app and gave the quiz for a rapid check of symptoms to stay safe.

Community based social initiatives

 The College continued its engagement with several social and community-based initiatives. One example of this is the organization of  Kala 2019 celebrated on 6th September. The event was dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary. This year’s theme was Khwaab which was chosen to encourage the children from 8 different NGOs to dream beyond limits and give them the motivation to pursue them. The children very excitedly shared their Khwaab – dreams, true to the event’s theme. A paper recycling session was also conducted in which the process of paper recycling was explained to children. The children went on to make sure beautiful bookmarks with the recycled paper. One session was dedicated to sharing stories with the children. The stories offered children entertainment as well as valuable lessons to cherish.

Certificate and add-on courses for students

The following language courses were offered in lady Shri Ram College for Women in the academic year 2019-2020.

  1. Short term certificate course in German leading to an A1 certification by the Goethe Institute. 58 students enrolled for the course. It was a 2-semester course with 60 hours in each semester. The course commenced on 20th August 2019 and classes were conducted on campus till the lockdown in March 2020. After this, classes continued in an on-line mode till early May followed by an examination
  2. Short term certificate course in Spanish is a 50 hour course leading to level 1 certification by Mundo Latino institute. This course was run by Mundo Latino in College. 36 students enrolled for the course. The course commenced on 10th September 2019 and classes concluded on 16th November with the certificate examination.
  3. Certificate course in French. This is ayear-long course offered by the University of Delhi, Department of Germanic and Romance Studies. 32 students enrolled for the course. The course commenced on 3rd September 2019 and classes were conducted on campus till the lockdown in March 2020. After this, classes continued in an on-line mode till early May. Students appeared for the examination in May.
  4. Certificate course in Russian Language. This is ayear-long course offered by the University of Delhi. 21 students enrolled for the course. The course commenced on 27th August 2019 and classes were conducted on campus till the lockdown in March 2020. After this, classes continued in an on-line mode till early May. Students appeared for the examination in May.

The department of Psychology conducted an Online Short-term Certificate Course titled ‘COVID-19: The Psychology of Human Behaviour’ with 35 students from different departments of LSR. The course, which was the first of its kind in college, commenced on the 14th of July and concluded on the 31st of July, 2020.This course was an exploration of the psychology of human behaviour, relationships and social support within the context of the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic. The various sessions of the course were facilitated by faculty members of the psychology department on topics such as Pandemics, Psychology and Society, Impact of Covid-19 on interpersonal relationships, Covid-19 and Mental Health,  Covid -19 and Labour Migration. Students were recruited into the course after a rigorous screening process. Those who completed all attendance requirements and submitted high quality assignments within the stipulated deadlines were awarded certificates at the end of the course. The course was successfully completed by each student who was recruited for it. Reflections and feedback on each session were taken from the students indicating that it was well-received and impactful. 

Increasing National and International collaborations

Several collaborations took place between LSR and other educational institutions. For instance, students from Macquarie University, Australia visited LSR for a short-term course from 9th to 13th September, 2019. The Students’ Union took the initiative to organize cultural interactions between the visiting students and their LSR counterparts which proved very popular. LSR faculty members from different departments also interacted with the group sharing insights from their respective disciplines. The visit emerged to be an enriching experience for everyone involved as it created tremendous opportunities for the exchange of academic and cultural ideas.

Apart from this, several talks were conducted to open the doors for future collaborations between the students of LSR and other institutes. Some of the experts who conducted talks for the students of LSR included Mr. Nilesh Gaikwad, India Representative of the EDHEC Business School, Paris and Ms. AasthaVirk Singh, Senior Advisor, Education USA, United States India Education Foundation. In addition, a delegation from the Cornell Law School, USA consisting of Prof. Monica Ingram, Associate Dean, Admissions, Prof. Markeisha Miner, Dean of Students, and Prof. Sital Kalantry, Professor of Law, Cornell Law School visited LSR and discussed the opportunities available for Indian students to study law in USA.

Working with gender-related issues

The college organised a large number of talks and events on women empowerment and gender related issues. Topics such as the Transgender bill, the Intersection of Gender, Disability and Sexuality; Feminist Art by South Asian Women and Women in the Media were addressed. NCC-LSR also celebrated the National Girl Child week and International Women’s Day, 2020. Gender sensitisation workshops were held at NSS-LSR affiliated NGOs including CDP(Child Development Programme), Adharshila, Udayan Care and Vidya, as a part of the ‘Guftugu’ programme. These sessions were based on the theme ‘Gender Inequality in household chores’. These sessions were planned with different age-appropriate interactive activities.

Working with Delhi based schools on mental health

Project Ruhani, an initiative by Enactus Lady Shri Ram College for Women, envisions a society where mental health services are accessible and affordable to all. During the Covid-19 lockdown, Project Ruhani collaborated with MINDSHALA LIVE, an online school wellness program conducting 15+ mental health awareness sessions in schools with children, teachers and even parents.